As building construction evolves, buildings are required to provide increased levels of insulation. Such increases in insulation help to decrease the energy requirements of the building while providing sufficient comfort to the building's occupants. To increase the thermal efficiency of a building, insulation is often applied to the outer and/or inner surfaces of the building. To further increase the thermal efficiency, air barriers are often applied, which minimize the exchange of air between the building's interior and the surrounding environment.
Traditionally, providing a building with both an air barrier and insulation requires a two step process. To provide the air barrier, an exterior wall surface is prepped to remove all dust and debris, then a primer is applied to seams in the exterior wall surface, and finally a tape material (e.g., flashing tape) is applied over the seams to seal any cracks, seams, or other openings. The surface prep and primer are typically necessary to ensure that the flashing tape sticks to the exterior wall surface. Often, the primer must completely dry before the tape material is applied and/or one or more coats of primer may be necessary to ensure that the tape adequately adheres to the exterior wall surface. This process is time consuming and expensive.
Subsequently, insulation may be applied over the taped exterior wall surface to provide an insulation layer. Such two step process adds cost and labor to building construction. Further, applying tape to the wall surface may provide a potential failure point at which cracks or seams may develop and thereby permit and/or increase air leakage. When multiple steps or redundancies are used to improve the process, more products are used that can lead to increased failure modes. As such, there is a need for improved methods of providing a building with both insulation and an air barrier assembly.